New signings need time to gel, says Chiefs coach

Kaizer Chiefs coach Nasreddine Nabi is convinced of the quality of his new trio Glody Lilepo, Tashreeq Morris and Thabo Cele, and despite Tuesday’s 2-2 draw against AmaZulu at FNB Stadium, saying they have not trained enough with the rest of the team.

“We saw the qualities of our new signings even though they didn’t have enough time to gel with the rest of the squad. We feel they were good ... Tashreeq and Lilepo were involved in the two goals that we had,” Nabi said.

“We believe Cele is a good player, but these players have only trained three or four times, so we haven’t had time to work with them to get them to understand other players and be understood as well.

“We believe that with more time... when we don’t have midweek games and we have the whole week to train, we’ll work on the patterns of play with them.”

Chiefs broke the deadlock in the 18th minute via Ramahlwe Mphahlele’s own goal after Morris’ effort deflected off the Usuthu defender to cross the line.

Tshepang Moremi restored parity five minutes later after he was splendidly teed up by Rowan Human.

Usuthu took the lead courtesy of Elmo Kambindu’s clean header from a corner kick on the hour mark, before AmaZulu goalkeeper Richard Ofori fumbled Lilepo’s weak header into his own net in the 63rd minute.

Nabi gave Lilepo, Morris and Cele their first starts after joining Chiefs last week. Lilepo and Cele came off the bench in the previous game, the Soweto derby, against their biggest rivals Orlando Pirates, which they lost 1-0.

Morris was making his debut as he missed the derby because of suspension.

Chiefs surprisingly made five changes to the starting team that did fairly well in the Soweto derby. Nabi insisted that tiredness forced him to rotate the team. Chiefs’ next game is against Stellenbosch at Athlone Stadium on Friday at 7.30pm.

“The changes were essentially due to fatigue ... two days after a very big game, demanding physically and mentally,'' Nabi stated.

“There are some players the GPS showed from the last game that they were a little hitting the red zone like someone like Ox [Sibongiseni Mthethwa] ... even today at the end of the game [after being introduced at the start of the second half] he had a bit of discomfort in his muscles due to the fatigue. George Matlou is injured and he will not be available as well for the next game.”